“Which on us said it were?” asked Nathan, rather put out. “Tho’, for that matter, a few weeks would carry him over the mire, and make him as good a lawyer as any judge among ’em. Oud Lawson the attorney told me that, in a talk I had wi’ him a bit sin. Na, na! it’s the lad’s own hankering after London that makes him want for to stay there for a year, let alone two.”
Nathan shook his head.
“And if it be his own hankering,” said Bessy, putting down her apron, her face all aflame, and her eyes swollen up, “I dunnot see harm in it. Lads aren’t like lasses, to be tied to their own fireside like th’ crook yonder. It’s fitting for a young man to go abroad, and see the world afore he settles down.”
Hester’s hand sought Bessy’s, and the two women sat in sympathetic defiance of any blame that should be thrown on the beloved absent. Nathan only said: “Nay, wench, dunna wax up so; whatten’s done, ’s done; and worse, it’s my doing. I mun needs make my bairn a gentleman; and we mun pay for it.”
“Dear uncle! he wunna spend much, I’ll answer for it; and I’ll scrimp and save i’ th’ house to make it good.”
“Wench!” said Nathan, solemnly, “it were not paying in cash I were speaking on: it were paying in heart’s care, and heaviness of soul. Lunnon is a place where the devil keeps court as well as King George; and my poor chap has more nor once welly fallen into his clutches here. I dunno what he’ll do when he gets close within sniff of him.”
“Don’t let him go, father!” said Hester, for the first time taking this view. Hitherto she had only thought of her own grief at parting with him. “Father, if you think so, keep him here, safe under our own eye.”
“Nay!” said Nathan, “he’s past time o’ life for that, Why, there’s not one on us knows where he is at this present time, and he not gone out of our sight an hour. He’s too big to be put back i’ th’ go-cart, mother, or kept within doors with the chair turned bottom upwards.”
“I wish he were a wee bairn lying in my arms again. It were a sore day when I weaned him; and I think life’s been getten sorer and sorer at every turn he’s ta’en towards manhood.”
“Coom, lass, that’s noan the way to be talking. Be thankful to Marcy that thou’st getten a man for the son as stands five foot eleven in’s stockings, and ne’er a sick piece about him. We wunnot grudge him his fling, will we, Bess, my wench. He’ll be coming back in a year, or mebby a bit more; and be a’ for settling in a quiet town like, wi’ a wife that’s noan so fur fra’ me at this very minute. An’ we oud folk, as we get into years, must gi’ up farm, and tak a bit on a house near Lawyer Benjamin.”
And so the good Nathan, his own heart heavy enough, tried to soothe his womenkind. But, of the three, his eyes were longest in closing; his apprehensions the deepest founded.
“I misdoubt me I hanna done well by th’ lad. I misdoubt me sore,” was the thought that kept him awake till day began to dawn. “Summet’s wrong about him, or folk would na look at me wi’ such piteous-like een when they speak on him. I can see th’ meaning of it, thof I’m too proud to let on. And Lawson, too, he holds his tongue more nor he should do, when I ax him how my lad’s getting on, and whatten sort of a lawyer he’ll mak. God be marciful to Hester an’ me, if th’ lad’s gone away! God be marciful! But mebby it’s this lying waking n’ the night through, that maks me so fearfu’. Why, when I were his age, I daur be bound I should ha’ spent money fast enoof, i’ I could ha’ come by it. But I had to arn it; that maks a great differ’. Well! It were hard to thwart th’ child of our old age, and we waiten so long for to have ’un!”
Next morning Nathan rode Moggy the cart horse into Highminster to see Mr. Lawson. Anybody who saw him ride out of his own yard would have been struck with the change in him which, when he returned; a change, more than a day’s unusual exercise should have made in a man of his years. He scarcely held the reins at all. One jerk of Moggy’s head would have plucked them out of his hands. His head was bent forward, his eyes looking on some unseen thing, with long unwinking gaze. But as he drew near home on his return, he made an effort to recover himself.
“No need fretting them,” he said; “lads will be lads. But I didna think he had it in him to be so thowtless; young as he is. Well, well! he’ll mebby get more wisdom i’ Lunnon. Anyways it’s best to cut him off fra such evil lads as Will Hawker, and such-like. It’s they as have led my boy astray. He were a good chap till he knowed them.”
But he put all his cares in the background when he came into the houseplace, where both Bessy and his wife met him at the door, and both would fain lend a hand to take off his great-coat.
“Theer, wenches, theer! ye might let a man alone for to get out on’s clothes! Why, I might ha’ struck thee, lass.” And he went on talking, trying to keep them off for a time from the subject that all had at heart. But there was no putting them off for ever; and, by dint of repeated questioning on his wife’s part, more was got out than he had ever meant to tell, enough to grieve both his hearers sorely; and yet the brave old man still kept the worst in his own breast.
The next day Benjamin came home for a week or two before making his great start to London. His father kept him at a distance, and was solemn and quiet in his manner to the young man. Bessy, who had shown anger enough at first, and had uttered many a sharp speech, began to relent, and then to feel hurt and displeased that her uncle should persevere so long in his cold, reserved manner, and Benjamin just going to leave them. Her aunt went, tremblingly busy, about the clothes-presses and drawers, as if afraid of letting herself think either of the past or the future; only once or twice, coming behind her son, she suddenly stooped over his sitting figure, and kissed his cheek, and stroked his hair. Bessy remembered afterwards—long years afterwards—how he had tossed his head away with nervous irritability on one of these occasions, and had muttered—her aunt did not hear it, but Bessy did— “Can’t you leave a man alone?”
Towards Bessy herself he was pretty gracious. No other words express his manner: it was not warm, nor tender, nor cousinly, but there was an assumption of underbred politeness towards her as a young, pretty woman; which politeness was neglected in his authoritative or rumbling manner towards his mother, or his sullen silence before his father. He once or twice ventured on a compliment to Bessy on her personal appearance. She stood still, and looked at him with astonishment.
“How’s my eyes changed sin last thou sawst them,” she asked, “that thou must be telling me about ’em i’ that fashion? I’d rayther by a deal see thee helping the mother when she’s dropped her knitting-needle and canua see i’ th’ dusk for to pick it up.”
But Bessy thought of his pretty speech about her eyes long after he had forgotten making it, and would have been puzzled to tell the colour of them. Many a day, after he was gone, did she look earnestly in the little oblong looking-glass, which hung up against the wall of her little sleeping-chamber, but which she used to take down in order to examine the eyes he had praised, murmuring to herself, “Pretty soft grey eyes! Pretty soft grey eyes!” until she would hang up the glass again with a sudden laugh and a rosy blush.
In the days, when he had gone away to the vague distance and vaguer place the city called London, Bessy tried to forget all that had gone against her feeling of the affection and duty that a son owed to his parents; and she had many things to forget of this kind that would keep surging up into her mind. For instance, she wished that he had not objected to the home-spun, home-made shirts which his mother and she had had such pleasure in getting ready for him. He might not know, it was true and so her love urged how carefully and evenly the thread had been spun: how, content with bleaching the yarn in the sunniest meadow, the linen, on its return from the weaver’s, had been spread out afresh on the sweet summer grass, and watered carefully night after night when there was no dew to perform the kindly office. He did not know—for no one but Bessy herself did—how many false or large stitches, made large and false by her aunt’s failing eyes (who yet liked to do the choicest